Over In The Meadow: An Interdisciplinary Collaboration
What do you get when a music teacher and a theater teacher collaborate?
Over a three month period, I had the phenomenal opportunity to collaborate with Ms Michelle, our music teacher (and now fabulous site coordinator) on an original music video with three different classes. We worked with the students to create the entire project from soup to nuts. A bit about our process—
1) Story and Setting
First, we began by teaching students the song "Over in the Meadow" alongside a text version of the song. The song explores a variety of animals that live in the meadow, introducing them through increasing numerals. I lead a guided drama exercise alongside the song, encouraging students to act out the different animals as we sung.
Then, we introduced the word "setting," or another word for place, and I lead each class in a game I call "Setting Swap." In the game, students must move around the room as if they are in a specific setting, and we'll mirror the setting by adding a visual on the smartboard. Then, I'll call "Setting swap!" and instruct students to freeze. I'll change the setting on the board, and students must shift their actions to appropriately fit in the new setting.
Each class had the opportunity to choose a new setting (ie Central Park, the woods, the rainforest). We began researching our new setting in order to make a list of ten new animals for our song, ones that would reflect the setting we chose. We closely examined videos demonstrating how those animals moved and practiced moving like them ourselves.
2) Research
We asked students to then consider what would happen if we changed the setting of Over in the Meadow. What would happen to the animals? Would they change or stay the same?
3) Write and Record
Time to write! With the help of our wonderful music teacher Ms. Michelle, students replaced the lyrics of "Over in the Meadow" with the setting of their class's choice. Then, we used a real microphone to record our newly penned lyrics.
4) Sets, Costumes, Props, Oh my!
With the help of our research (and each other), students worked together to build every piece we'd need to make our movies. First, we made a list of each piece we needed to make. Then we built sets reflecting the locations we chose, constructed original costumes, and made signs. We counted costumes to make sure we had enough for each student, considered our understandings of the world around us by choosing appropriate colors for the costumes and details for our set pieces, and practiced working collaboratively over and over again as we worked to finish everything we'd set out to do.
5) Filming
Once everything was made and done, it was time to film the movie! We put on our costumes, set up our sets, and pressed "record" on the camera as our original song played in the background. Ms. Michelle and I directed the students as they acted out the different animals in their song, switching costumes in between "takes." The students practiced resilience and patience as we made sure every friend had a chance to be in the movie. They also practiced self-reflection watching each other and themselves, confirming that the movie looked they way they wanted to.
